Neural oscillations underlying selective attention follow sexually divergent developmental trajectories during adolescence

Longitudinal changes in the neural oscillatory dynamics underlying abstract reasoning in children and adolescents

“…Given the smaller, somewhat imbalanced sample size, we were limited in the breadth and depth of analyses we were able to perform, including explorations of sex-specific changes in neural oscillatory dynamics over time. Several recent studies have shown unique trajectories of development among male versus female youths in investigations of both task-based ( Fung et al, 2021 ; Taylor et al, 2021 , 2020 ) and spontaneous cortical dynamics ( Ott et al, 2021 ). Future longitudinal studies should aim to acquire data from larger samples of equally-balanced male and female youths to further disentangle the unique trajectories of fluid reasoning maturation in this dynamic period of development.…”

Spontaneous cortical MEG activity undergoes unique age- and sex-related changes during the transition to adolescence

“…The sex differences we observed in resting state spontaneous activity are a novel finding that are not entirely surprising given the known sexually dimorphic patterns of functional and structural neural development. For example, numerous studies have shown sex differences in the task-based oscillatory dynamics underlying working memory ( Embury et al, 2019 ), abstract reasoning ( Taylor et al, 2020b ), selective attention ( Taylor et al, 2021 ), visual processing (Fung et al, 2021), and visuospatial attention ( Killanin et al, 2020 ; Wiesman and Wilson, 2019 ) spanning theta, alpha, and gamma frequencies across spatially distributed areas. However, these findings are not universal; another study of motor processing in youth found no significant sex effects ( Trevarrow et al, 2019 ), which may indicate that sex differences are more robust in high-level cognitive and sensory tasks.…”

“…However, far less is known about how spontaneous dynamics shift during the transition from childhood to adolescence. Given the robust age- and sex-related shifts in cortical structure ( Faghiri et al, 2019 , 2018 ; Mills and Tamnes, 2014 ), resting-state networks ( Fair et al, 2008 ; Hunt et al, 2019 ; Stevens et al, 2009 ), and task-related brain oscillations ( Embury et al, 2019 ; Killanin et al, 2020 ; Taylor et al, 2021 , 2020a ,b; Wiesman and Wilson, 2019 ) that occur during adolescence, it is likely that spontaneous neural dynamics will also show significant age and sex related changes throughout this transition. In the current study, we use MEG imaging to map changes in spontaneous cortical activity during the transition from childhood to adolescence.…”

Impacts of adrenarcheal DHEA levels on spontaneous cortical activity during development

“…For example, a previous study using MEG elucidated age- and sex-related effects in spontaneous neural dynamics in adolescents across specific canonical frequency bands ( Ott et al, 2021 ). In addition, several prior MEG studies have shown that task-related neural oscillatory dynamics are sensitive to critical indicators of development, including pubertal testosterone, and that this developmental sensitivity is modulated by sex ( Fung et al, 2020 , Fung et al, 2021 , Killanin et al, 2020 , Taylor et al, 2021 ).…”